- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The warm, dry late winter weather in California has been good news for almond farmers who were concerned about a bee shortage during bloom, reported Capital Press.
"It looks good right now," said Rich Buchner, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Tehama County. "The bees are out working like crazy. It's going to be warm and dry over the next 10 days, so it should be about perfect for almond set."
Almond growers are enjoying a vibrant blossom season even though California only had about 500,000 bee colonies available as of mid-February to pollinate this year's crop of 800,000 acres,...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Alison Van Eenennaam, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, commented on a KCRA news segment about Proposition 37, an initiative on California's November ballot that, if passed, would require special labeling on products that contain genetically modified ingredients.
The reporters called the proposition a "multi-million dollar food fight."
"All of the data that's come out from the American Medical Association and National Academy of Sciences have all agreed that the food products on the market today that are...
- Author: Brenda Dawson
The Napa Valley Register took a closer look at coyotes in western Napa County subdivisions, after neighbors started spotting the canines near their homes.
Reporter Peter Jensen talked to Robert Timm, director of the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center, which is located in Mendocino County. Timm said that researchers track reports of coyote attacks on humans, though no such attacks have ever been reported in Napa County.
For some Sacramento area trees, it's already spring
The
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Re-washing bagged greens may be making salads dirtier, according to a bevy of food safety experts, reported Deborah Schoch in the Los Angeles Times.
Even the cleanest kitchens can teem with harmful pathogens - on cutting boards and in salad spinners, on knives that just sliced raw chicken, on damp, well-used cloth towels.
"In brief, consumers don't wash up very well and may contaminate produce due to dirty hands and dirty sink," emailed Christine M. Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at UC Davis. That's especially a problem with salad greens, since they never get...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
It's been nearly 20 years since olive, walnut and pistachio farmers first declared war on cotton, but the Glenn County Board of Supervisors declared Tuesday that fear of verticillium dahliae levels might be a a bit overblown, said an article by Susan Meeker in the Colusa County Sun-Herald.
The board agreed to revisit the 2008 regulation that prevents cotton growers from planting in the same field three years in a row if the level of verticillium wilt is detected in 3 percent or more of the crop.
Doug Munier, farm advisor for University of California Cooperative Extension,...
